Reviews

“...OlliOlli is as good now as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was fifteen years ago. It might even be better.”
9.5/10 – Destructoid

“Elegant, understated and yet with the capacity for wild showboating, OlliOlli is a twitch classic, a startling debut from a young British indie”
9/10 – Eurogamer

About This Game

OlliOlli mixes addictive one-life gameplay with over 120 tricks and grinds across 50 deviously crafted levels, 250 Challenges, Spots Mode and Daily Grind. Not enough for you? Complete all challenges to unlock the super skillful RAD Mode! Rack up the biggest and coolest combos along the way then time your landing to perfection to rule the leader-boards. Just don’t slam on your face*. Compete across the world in all modes to get the highest scores on every Level and Spot. Daily Grind gives you 24 hours to challenge the world at a randomly selected Spot. You can practice as many times as you like, but you only get one chance to set your score.

* You will slam on your face.

Quad Modal: Four Game Modes - Career, Spots, Daily Grind and RAD mode - will have you grinding for months to come

Press to Land: Perfect landing and grind mechanic that rewards you for timing tricks to perfection, lock this down and mainline your brain into skateboarding's rhythm.

Showboating: Battle online for the number one spot on every mode, squeeze in that one extra trick for world dominance.

Ride the World: Five different stages, each with their own unique levels and obstacles, grind over JCBs in the junkyard and heelflip over Dinosaurs in Neon!

Precision Fingering: Over 120 tricks and grinds, from boardslides to nosegrinds and kickflips to impossibles - your digits will never get bored!

It's been a long time since a game grabbed me like this. Very addictive. Hard but fair. Super frustrating when you can't hit something, but when you finally do, you feel like a god. Basically like Super Meat Boy but for skateboarding. Great fun.

I have always LOVED skateboarding games. I never really got tha hang of it IRL, but I loved playing "Tony Hawk Proskater" on the N64 and mastering the crazy tricks. This is 10x more difficult than THPS yet just as fun. It gives you the best feeling when you nail that crazy combo and SICK flashes on the screen. Great game! Best played with a controller :)

Let's go in steps here.First of all, you probably need a controller to enjoy this game, even the game tells you that when you're opening it without your controller plugged in. I haven't tried playing with my keyboard, but with the controller you use your analog stick to do tricks, so it involves a lot of spinning it around in multiple ways and pressing buttons along to do all the complex stunts you need without really having to think too much about it. Simple to learn, challenging (in a fun way!) to master, as it offers a fulfilling variety of stunts of different levels that you can perform.

Is this another one of those endless running / distance games?

It involves distance, but it isn't endless. The game is comprised of "stages" with a number of goals you can accomplish in each of those. Each stage has a certain distance, to go to the next one, usually all you need to do is finish the stage in one piece. However, you also have the option of completing one or more of those multiple goals that each stage offers. Completing all goals in a level unlocks a new difficulty of that level, with even more challenges. So it's a bit different of the boring endless distance games that have been crowding the game market lately.

Is there a story?

Sorry, not really, but even though I love games with stories, I didn't miss in this case because the game mechanics keep you hooked init. It's actually very easy to completely forget about your goals even, just because you got so excited that you got like 10 perfects in a row and you want to see how far you can go.

What else can you say about this game?

As you're playing, you learn with your mistakes, so even when you fail it doesn't get frustrating, because you get that feeling that in just a few more tries you'll get it right. Some times you'll have to stop doing the stunts you tend to overuse, and pull different strategies and combos to get the objects in the field that you need to collect to complete a challenge. There's also a big variety of stunts you can perform, as well as the techniques you need to develop to get perfect landings, nosegrinds, to get better speed without having to put your foot on the ground to push your skate faster, etc.

Yeah, it's a casual game, but I tell you, it's addictive. (I just spent 2 hours playing it nonstop, and had to stop myself because I had work to do, otherwise I would've kept going - even just writing this review makes me want to go back and play it a bit more!) My only sadness so far? I wish it had more steam achievs, I feel like this game has a lot of cool achievement possibilities, but sadly that wasn't well explored. At least we get cool in-game coals to achieve, though!

OlliOlli is a skill and timing based 2D side scrolling runner with a skateboarding theme. I say runner, because even though you're riding a skateboard, you can't stop. You're always moving to the right. Its an original take on the genre and a fresh skateboarder. I'm not sure this game is for everyone because of the genre and control scheme.

The goal is simple, make it to the end of each level without falling off your board. You'll grind, jump and ride your board to the end. Just you. Getting to the end unlocks the next level. Each career level has five optional goals. Things like get X score or X combo. Jump gaps, collect spray cans, do a kick flip, only use one push or grind everything that needs girding. When you accomplish all five goals in an amateur level, it unlocks a pro level. Not only do the goals keep you in the relatively short levels, but you're rewarded for playing completing them. Outside of the career half of the game there is a "spot" half, with 25 more armature levels. These spots require you to do one long trick combination to the end of the level. There are 25 pro spot levels to compliment the amateurs.

The challenge isn't avoiding obstacles, its the unique control scheme. To get speed, you need to push with the simple tap of a button. Two taps gets you up to top speed. Now for the tricky part. Instead of having a jump button, you use the analog stick to hold in one direction to charge the jump and release. So you flick the stick to jump. The direction you flick the stick determines the trick in the jump. There is a trictionary if you're looking for a specific trip, but I don't think it matters what trick you do. Your momentum determines the distance of the jump. You can even do quarter circles, half circles and so on to perform bigger tricks. Its elegant and simple yet complex and difficult to time because of how unique it is.

When you are about to land the jump, you need to hit the land button, which is the same as the push button. If you don't push the land button, you'll land a "sloppy" which briefly stuns your rider by making him unbalanced. Getting stunned makes you vulnerable to falling off your board because you can't jump. Hitting obstacles or falling down a flight of stairs sends your rider tumbling a comical distance. In a way its a funny bit to tell you that you've failed, but in another way its a time wasting punishment. There are several grades to your landing depending how close to the ground you hit the button. A sloppy landing can make 20 trick combination worthless for point value. The grade of your landing not only determines the score you get for the combination, but it changes your momentum. A sloppy landing slows you down while a perfect landing will make you speed up.

Outside of pushes, jumps and landings, there are grinds and twists. Twisting in air requires you to hold the button before you jump so your rider gets into position. I didn't find these necessary, but if you want a bigger score, you'll twist like its the 1950s. Twists are true risks and rewards, because you can fail the level if you mess up. Grinds are much easier. If there's a wall, railing or rooftop, just push the analog stick and hold it. Releasing it makes the rider jump as he normally would. Getting big combos relies on your ability to grind. Like with landings, you can score perfect grinds too, depending on how late you time your grind. Some of the later levels rely on your ability to make perfect grinds, because they keep your momentum going. Just know this is what you're getting yourself into.

There is an easy to use, optional tutorial that explains all the controls. Everything gets explained one by one before the game makes you do them.

There are five themes in OlliOlli each has its own color pallet. A grey urban, a brown pallet junkyard, a blue port, a snowy white base reminiscent of Rush'n Attack and finally the bright neon city. They are all beautiful, but they go by in an unnoticeable blur. I couldn't pay attention to anything other than was there a grind or a landing coming? As the levels get higher, the challenge grows. The base has safe pavement to land on, but a lot of it is snow that sends you tumbling. Its fun to grind over helicopter blades and statues instead of simple railings and walls. Neon city is mostly rooftops and railings to grind on, because the ground is either pink spikes or wide stairways.

To keep you in the game there are daily challenges that let you practice as much as you want, but you only have one real attempt. Each level has its own leader boards after every attempt. The game keeps track of your high score of each level and your best trick combination for that run. Truth be told, the game did freeze and twice crash in four hours after some completed runs. I assume because it was loading leader board standings and couldn't.

The soundtrack is also a real standout. The lo fi electronic beats fit the art style. For the most part it felt like all mellow songs, but there is an eclectic mix of tunes. No matter what the beat, nothing got in the way and just added to the feeling of zoning out that I had while playing. The game became all timing with no thought. I just knew from playing that was the millisecond I needed to do something. After spending 20 - 30 minutes on some of the later levels of the amateur career, I could might be able to do them blindfolded.

In the future I'd like to see different riders to unlock. Not that the rider was anything bad, but it was just him for the 4 hours I played. I am thankful for him having a red hat, otherwise he may have gotten lost in the blur of the background.

In conclusion, its a fantastic presentation and a test of skill, but I'm not sure how fun the game actually is. I found my mind not as engaged as my reflexes were. I wasn't having any joy going through the motions. Although I did get a few laughs seeing my rider tumble down flights of staircases and seeing just how many meters he could go. Its still a good game, but after going through the armature career and spots, I'm just not that willing to unlock all the pro levels.

OlliOlli strips trick-based skateboarding down to its most exhilarating, addicting elements.

It’s the practice and lead up to a perfect run; the repeated failure and experimentation over and over until finally you nail that perfect combo and the multipliers go crazy. OlliOlli takes that key moment and feeling that was pioneered, refined, and then beaten into the ground by Tony Hawk Pro-Skater, and removes all the fluff and needless bloat that began to weigh the series down the further it went on.

Some of this is accomplished inherently by moving from a 3D sandbox to an always moving sidescroller, which immediately gives OlliOlli a great deal of originality. But developer Roll7 clearly knows and loves the games that built (and subsequently largely destroyed) the extreme sports genre, and borrows liberally the pieces that worked best from them to make a new, disturbingly addictive blend of mechanics.

It’s Tony Hawk’s eccentricity, Skate’s organic trick system, and a whole lot of intelligent endless runner progression design. Performing tricks is as simple as flicking the analogue stick, but having to time your landings adds a considerable amount of risk versus reward to performing longer tricks when your movement speed is largely out of your control and it’s not always easy to predict what’s going to meet you later on in the level.

OlliOlli can be absurdly difficult at parts, but it’s a challenge that I always felt prepared for. The goals for each level gradually introduce new moves into your skillset, and then gave me the perfect area to learn them. There’s a feeling of constant growth as you clear each level and the gradually climbs to counteract it, but also an understanding that for some players certain challenges will be out of their reach. OlliOlli never forced me to clear a goal or spend more time on a certain level than I wanted to, but it was so successful at instilling confidence in my ability to overcome whatever it threw at me that I rarely had any desire to move on before showing the game how capable I was.

I did eventually abandon some levels, surrendering that I wasn’t quite as skilled as I pretended to be, but unlike a lot of games my experience wasn’t tarnished in any way for doing so. OlliOlli seems designed from the ground up to be as much as you want to put into it, and providing an awesome time whatever that is. The short levels are perfect for picking off in small bursts, and the addition of a daily grind which changes daily and gives a you only one chance to hit your best score, gave even more reason to return to the game instead of trying to plow through it all at once.

My biggest frustration with OlliOlli actually doesn’t have anything to do with what’s here, but the disappointing absence of a convenient leaderboard. You can track your score and compare it with others in any level you choose, but instead of being prominently displayed it’s put on a separate screen completely removed from gameplay. For a game so perfectly designed for chasing high scores (you even unlock score focused “spots” after clearing each level once), having something like Geometry Wars 2’s immediate tracking of leaderboard positioning and your next score to beat would have been far more compelling a motivator for me to chase my friend’s best scores.

That may matter more or not at all depending on your feelings toward competing on leaderboards, but it’s at least telling that my only major issue with OlliOlli is in something it lacks (and even then, it’s more the implementation than complete absence of a feature). It’s a game so precisely tuned and refined that I found myself becoming lost for hours at a time repeating levels attempting to best my prior run. It gave me a sense of accomplishment and elation at expertly executing a sequence of tricks I haven’t felt in a decade, and reminded me why I’m so sad games of this nature were killed off by their own insistence on flooding the market and deluding themselves with features nobody wanted. OlliOlli suffers from none of that. It’s pure, sublime skating perfection.

On the PC version:While the PC version of OlliOlli is content complete to its Playstation 4 and Vita counterparts, the port has sadly suffered a great deal in the transition. I experience a significant amount of technical issues, from dropped frames, persistent slowdown, leaderboards crashing the game, and a generally lower level of responsiveness than a game so reliant on timing needs. It wasn’t so bad I was unable to enjoy the game or play it successfully, but if you have the ability to play it on another platform it might be advisable to do so.

Kicks ♥♥♥, is a ton of fun and hard as nails. You'll need a controller and good nerves. It's a mix between endless runners like CANABALT, Super Meat boy and the Tony Hawk franchise. The look is a bit uninspired, with very basic visuals but everything is in some way neatly color-coded so you'll know where to grind and where to jump. The soundtrack ranges between smooth bar jazz and dubstep with drops as big as the one in level 5-5.The 10,99€ Price tag seems steep and could be under 10, but i can't complain. i played more then 13 hours and come back now and then for more, just because it's a fun, easy and fast way to kill time and to pull of some cool looking combos.Get it! if not now, then on sale.

Finally a side scroller skateboard game done right, the list of failed attempts on this genre is way too big to mention, they either fail on unnatural gameplay or they are way too simplistic, with OlliOlli you will get it all done the right, controls are very snappy, although it will make you master it with a balanced learning curve, the sound fx is spot on, and it has hours of gameplay and replay value.

If you you are into skateboard games as well as skill based games such as “Super Meat Boy” or “Bit Trip Runner” this is a must try.

A wonderful 2D "Tony Hawk Proskater" with a kicking soundtrack. The tricks are fun to pull off but they can be quite hard to master. If you loved the old boarding games of the late 90s then it is a must buy.

I'm enjoying this a lot. There was a lot of Tony Hawk Pro Skater muscle memory to unlearn though. You basically do everything with the left analog stick and use the A button on the xbox controller to push/land.

I did have some trouble landing perfect grinds. I'm not sure if it's possible to land a grind too late, that might be the cause of it. EDIT: I was using a wireless controller which was the cause for that.

I can pull off perfect grinds pretty consistently now. The weird thing is that you can get perfect grinds by grinding at the last possible moment but that doesn't seem to be the case for landing on the ground, I have to press a bit earlier for that.

I played the heck out of this on Vita, and it's almost identical on PC. I know most people don't have Vitas, though so this is game that shouldn't be missed if you like oldschool combo-based skating games. The timing for ladning takes some time to get used to, and I swear sometimes it misses grinds that it shouldn't, but overall it's really fun.

This game is fun and satisfying. But all I can say is USE A CONTROLLER! It (For me) does not work well on a keyboard. But the concept is fun, the graphics are simplistic and look amazing. I rate this 8/10!